Yesterday, an organization known as Rewind AI introduced a self-titled software program product for Macs with Apple Silicon that reportedly retains a extremely compressed, searchable file of every thing you do domestically in your Mac and allows you to “rewind” time to see it later. If you happen to neglect one thing you’ve got “seen, stated, or heard,” Rewind desires that will help you discover it simply.

Rewind AI claims its product shops all recording information domestically in your machine and doesn’t require cloud integration. Amongst its guarantees, Rewind will reportedly allow you to rewind Zoom conferences and pull info from them in a searchable type.

In a video demo on Rewind.AI’s website, the app opens when a consumer presses Command+Shift+House. The search bar suggests typing “something you’ve got seen, stated, or heard.” It additionally exhibits a timeline on the backside of the display that represents earlier actions in apps.

After trying to find “tps experiences,” the video depicts a grid view of each time Rewind has encountered the phrase “tps experiences” as audio or textual content in any app, together with Zoom chats, textual content messages, emails, Slack conversations, and Phrase paperwork. It describes filtering the outcomes by app—and the flexibility to repeat and paste from these previous situations if mandatory.

Based by Dan Siroker and Brett Bejcek, Rewind AI consists of a small distant crew positioned in varied cities across the US. Parts of the corporate beforehand created Scribe, a precursor to Rewind that acquired some press consideration in 2021. In an introductory weblog publish, Rewind AI co-founder Dan Siroker writes, “What if we may use know-how to enhance our reminiscence the identical approach a listening to help can increase our listening to?”

How does it work?

Rewind AI offers few particulars in regards to the app’s back-end know-how however describes “mind-boggling compression” that may reportedly compress recording information as much as 3,750 instances “with out a main lack of high quality,” giving an instance of 10.5GB of knowledge squeezed down to simply 2.8MB. Rewind says that even on a small onerous drive, “you’ll be able to retailer years of recordings”—a heady declare, to make certain.

The Rewind website additionally describes utilizing OCR to seize textual content content material and automatic speech recognition to mechanically transcribe something you’ve got stated or heard, together with in conferences, in order that “you by no means have to fret about dropping this content material once more.”

(If Rewind converts every thing it sees and hears into plain textual content, which may clarify the huge compression ratio. The demo didn’t present any reside video or audio recording playback, for instance, simply static screenshots with highlighted textual content. Now we have requested Rewind AI to make clear this level and can replace the article if we obtain a response.)

Rewind AI additionally says that Apple Silicon Macs with M1 and M2 chips are key to creating the product work in a “just about imperceptible” approach, using “just about each a part of the System on a Chip.”

Potential privateness points

Whereas laying out the imaginative and prescient for Rewind AI within the weblog publish talked about above, Siroker writes, “Our imaginative and prescient is to offer people good reminiscence.” However commenters on Twitter and YouTube have already begun stating eventualities the place “good reminiscence” may backfire.

For instance, Rewind may expose its customers to potential abuse from overbearing companions, bosses, legislation enforcement, or repressive governments; authorized points from recording delicate info; and consent points round recording different individuals in conferences.

Rewind addresses a few of these issues on its website, saying, “We retailer the entire recordings domestically in your Mac. Solely you will have entry to them.” Their demo website additionally says that you’ll pause or delete recordings at any time, and you may mechanically exclude sure apps out of your recorded historical past, together with non-public shopping modes in browsers.

So far as acquiring permission to file a gathering with different contributors, Rewind offers its personal assist web page titled “All the things it’s essential to find out about consent” that features recommendation resembling “Earlier than you file somebody, it’s best to all the time ask for his or her consent.” The web page recommends telling individuals the assembly can be recorded—maybe forward of time—and that customers observe all native legal guidelines associated to recording conversations.

Privateness and moral issues apart, Andreessen Horowitz is taking the know-how severely sufficient to guide a $10 million spherical of funding at a valuation of $75 million. The enterprise capital agency wrote about its causes for investing in Rewind, posing the product as a remedy for info overload.

At present, the Rewind product isn’t publicly obtainable, however anybody can request “Early Entry” on the Rewind web site. We reached out to Rewind and requested for an opportunity to attempt the software program.